FROM TYPEWRITERS TO COMPUTERS: TECHNOLOGY ADVANCEMENTS IN COMMUNICATION Thursday, July 30, 2009 EDUC 550 – Teaching with Primary Sources

Primary sources provide a window into the past—unfiltered access to the record of artistic, social, scientific and political thought and achievement during the specific period under study, produced by people who lived during that period.

Miss Marie Reardon, stenographer, sitting at a typewriter in a room. Chicago Daily News, Inc., photographer. Created/Published 1922 DN Chicago Daily News negatives collection, Courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society.

Woman using computer to check design of fabric. Photographer: Martha Cooper Created/Published: 1994 AFC 1995/028: WIP-MC-B Working in Paterson Folklife Project Library of Congress, Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center Washington, D.C.

Today, most people have a computer in their home. They are an integral part of our everyday lives and help us accomplish the most simple of tasks, right down to getting a needed phone number. Do we really appreciate and know how the computer was first developed and where it came from?

IT STARTED WITH THE TYPEWRITER… Before the computer and electricity there was the typewriter. There were many contributors to this invention, so there can be no credit given to any single person. The history of the typewriter starts in 1714 with Henry Mill, British Inventor, who obtained a patent for what was a similar invention to the typewriter.

From 1829 to 1870 many inventors tried to patent a typing device in both Europe and America. However, none of these patents/inventions went into commercial production. Some of these inventors include Henry Mill (a British Inventor) and William Austin Burt (a American inventor, legislator, surveyor, and millwright).

In 1870 a Danish inventor Rasmus Malling-Hansen became the first person to commercially sell the typewriter in 1870 and in that same year Thomas Edison invented the first electric typewriter. Inventors spent years working to perfect this, only to see newer technology make it obsolete. Just like the model T did to the horse and carriage.

Boy typing on a typewriter at Chicago Daily News sanitarium. Chicago Daily News, Inc., photographer. Created/Published 1929 DN Chicago Daily News negatives collection, Courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society.

Co-inventor examines new calculator. Dr. J. Presper Eckert, Jr., co-inventor of the electronic numerical integrator and computer at the University of Pennsylvania here, examines the machine's automatic control panel. Created/Published: 1946 LC-USZ Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

One man looks on as another man prepares Univac computer to predict a winning horse. New York World Telegram & Sun photo by Herman Hiller. Created/Published: 1959 LC-USZ Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

Babbage’s engines were among the first mechanical computers, although they were not actually completed, largely because of funding problems and personality issues. THE FIRST COMPUTER DEVELOPED… Charles Babbage, also known as “the father of computing,” originated the idea of a programmable computer.

He directed the building of some steam- powered machines that achieved some success, suggesting that calculations could be mechanized. Although Babbage’s machines were mechanical and unwieldy, their basic architecture was very similar to a modern computer. The data and program memory were separated, operation was instruction based, the control unit could make conditional jumps and the machine had a separate in/output unit.”

The Atanasoff Berry Computer (AKA ABC) was the first electronic Computer. It weighed more than 700 pounds. Work began on this computer in 1937 by John Vincent Atanasaoff and Clifford Berry. This new machine was capable of solving up to 29 simultaneous linear equations. However, the input/output was unreliable and its inventors had to leave Iowa State University for World War II in 1942, leaving the progress of their project untouched.

Because the inventors had left for war they were not widely known until the machine was rediscovered in the 1960’s which caused the controversy of the first computer. “The ABC first demonstrated in 1939 may not have been much of a computer, just as the Wrights’ model was not much of an airplane, but it opened the way.” Allan R. Mackintosh, Professor University of Copenhagen.

The Apple Macintosh debuts in It features a simple, graphical interface, uses the 8-MHz, 32-bit Motorola CPU, and has a built-in 9-inch black and white screen.

Electrical engineer Ernest Milov installing a laptop computer into the take-up panel to evaluate the circuits. Photographer: Robert McCarl Created/Published: 1994 AFC 1995/028: WIP-RM-C Working in Paterson Folklife Project Library of Congress, Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center

THE PORTABLE COMPUTER… Early scientists said “computers will never be small enough to be portable” The Epson HX-20 was considered first portable computer (AKA Laptop, Notebook) was developed in It was the size of a sewing machine and was not battery operated.

How has the changing technology from typewriters to computers transform the way we communicate?